


To Die Will Be an Awfully Big Adventure

by shadesfalcon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), F/M, Mental Instability, Social Media, Spies & Secret Agents, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/pseuds/shadesfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the World Security Council is not apt to be as forgiving as SHIELD. They choose, instead, to consider Clint Barton a responsible party for his actions under Loki's control, and are quick to sentence him to death. Natasha, with her world in the balance, chooses to bargain for the life of one man, racing to get Clint before the execution can be carried out.</p><p>Perhaps love is not only for children.</p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/post/81312390826">this painful gifset</a> by the lovely <a href="http://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/">spectralarchers</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	To Die Will Be an Awfully Big Adventure

**81 Hours before the Execution**

_The defendant is guilty as charged, in the Incident of New York…_

She sees his breath catch, and it isn’t even subtle. A civilian could have noticed it. Hell, the grainy court camera is probably picking it up.

_...and is therefore sentenced to the capital punishment..._

He half-stands, feels his lawyer's warning hand on his leg, and sits again.

_…for his betrayal of SHIELD secrets, for the manslaughter of 78 agents…_

Fuck them all for telling him the number. She knows it’s an irrational thought, in the face of the sentence they just handed down, but she can’t help it. The thick concrete walls that protect her mind and body were all stripped away during the battle, and she has yet to build them back up. She alone is left, made of thin crystal and filled with a watery rationality that is leaking out the cracks.

It allows her this brief moment of irrationality.

Fuck them all for telling him the number.

_…for his collaboration with the enemy of the state known as Loki…_

Collaboration. A delicate word, wherein Barton is neither instigator nor victim. She feels the thin cracks in her crystal body push wider, and the clear water of her rationality drips faster. Rogers made her come into the court room unarmed, and she’d scoffed at him for it. Now, she’s angry he’d anticipated her so thoroughly.

_…and for the destruction of SHEILD's helicarrier…_

Ok, “destruction” is a pretty strong word. Barton had more “damaged” the helicarrier. “Destruction” is what Natasha intends to reign down on the heads of whoever she digs up as actually pulling the strings here.

_…without appeal._

She stands, then, giving up on the bullshit. She has phone calls to make, databases to hack, and a ridiculous number of people to threaten. She can’t afford to waste any more time with this mock trial.

Rogers tries to catch her eye, leaning forward into her field of vision, but she keeps her stride – keeps her eyes on the door – and he doesn’t risk actually breaking his silence with the way this room carries the slightest whisper to its furthest corners.

She finds out later that the execution has been moved to three days from the following morning, a continuation of the façade of justice. She finds out later that no one raises an objection, a continuation of the façade of public concern.

 

 

**what's trending on twitter?**

#battleofnewyork

#avengers

#aliens

#stillmissing

#newyork

#iwanttobelieve

 

 

 **Why Wouldn’t I?** @AleciaJJ

I’m still looking for you, mom! Please call me! #stillmissing

 

 **Eve Parks** @eveparks

what if i’d decided to go to #newyork after all @KaileyRhodes #battleofnewyork

 

 **CNN** @CNN

Tony Stark gets emotional trying to defend The Hulk. “He’s just a guy! Like you or me, ok?” #avengers #battleofnewyork cnn.it/2Gnfrl8

 

**79 Hours before the Execution**

“But…aliens!” whines every news reporter and politician from one coast to the other, in every country.

It’s the new magic word. A generation ago, a Cold War raged in full effect and the phrase “nuclear war” had pushed political agendas through without thought for long term consequences or reality itself. People panic, in the face of large-scale destruction.

History repeats itself.

It’s not that Natasha doesn’t understand. She’s faced enough large-scale destruction to understand better than any of them. But she still blames them. Blames them for the way they latch onto whatever they see as the closet option, forget its viability.

She half-turns to make an off-color joke to Clint, something about the animalistic nature of the masses, but remembers halfway through her turn. Remembers that he’s sitting in chains in a cell somewhere. Remembers that she didn’t even stop to meet his eyes before she left. Remembers that she gave him no indication that she’s gone off to raise hell, if that’s what it takes.

The memories turn into a vision. Clint, pale with opened eyes that stare at the ceiling and will never ever sight a target again.

She bends down and retches across the sidewalk. Despite the approaching dusk, the sun is still above the horizon, and she’s in an affluent enough area of D.C. that someone asks her if she’s ok.

It doesn’t occur to Natasha to answer the question until she’s stumbled her way down a nearby narrow street and sat down on someone’s concrete front steps, but by then it’s too late. The lady had probably given her up for drunk or worse. She wraps her arms around herself and spits the taste of vomit delicately into the grass.

This is not the time to fall apart. This is the time to take other people apart. She stands abruptly and strips off her leather jacket. The first thing she does is unpin the broach and stuff it in her back pocket. Then she digs her cellphone out of the inner lining, slides it open, and drops the SIM card on the ground. Her heels make short work of it, and the pieces – along with the rest of the phone – go into the bin at the end of the driveway. The jacket follows after.

It’s cold out, and the wind bites against her bare arms.

She doesn’t notice. Her body is unearthing its old Russian blood. The blood that got cleaned off concrete floors and soaked the tips of whips. The blood that surged with enough adrenaline to snap a neck, but not enough that her hands began to shake. The blood that wasn’t taught the word for mercy, not even in the mother tongue. The first time she'd heard it, from a mark's lips, she'd thought it was a coupling of nonsense syllables.

It is a difference in her veins, and it does not bow to the chill of American winters.

 

**78 Hours before the Execution**

She doesn’t waste time slowly making her way to the top of the food chain. She’s already talked to Fury, and he’s on her side, but his hands are tied. He’s busy pulling strings all the way up the diplomacy ladder on his own side, so she’s going to trust him over there with the bureaucratic bullshit.

It’s not like she would be welcome in a political office. Hell, her voice just _calling_ a political office would be counted as an act of terrorism right there. No, she trusts Fury to deal with the top of the food chain.

Her place has always been slithering around on the bottom, anyway.

Well, the bottom, and Stark.

She doesn’t call him, even though she’s already grabbed a bolt bag and has several burner phones ready to go. Mostly, this is because she doubts the “burner” status of the phone will help much when it comes to Stark. He has an annoying habit of being ahead of her when it comes to technology.

And _only_ technology.

She shows up in his kitchen, instead. Specifically, she shows up by his best coffee machine, because it’s the only place he’ll always end up eventually. JARVIS greets her politely, but declines to interrupt his creator. Even when she says the word “emergency.”

She gets lucky anyway, and he shows up in a half-drunk stupor, covered in grease and babbling to JARVIS about cloaking mechanisms that can be applied to something faster than a helicarrier.

It triggers a brief flare of panic.

“Don’t talk to yourself when you work, Stark,” she reminds him, and he starts violently, then grins when he sees her.

“Well, if it isn’t the Mask of the Red Death, herself?” he slurs.

“You thought this would be a good time to get drunk,” she comments dryly. It’s not a question. Not even close. If she hadn’t been so off her game recently, she’d have guessed this was coming.

“Seems like a great time to me,” Stark continues. “What with how completely fucking useless I am, right now. Barton just…” He waves his hand out in the air, rather than finishing his sentence, pauses, and then turns to throw his glass against the wall.

The crystal shatters.

“This is about Barton?” she asks carefully.

“The fuck else would it be about? Steve texted me the moment the verdict went up.”

“I have a way for you to help with that, actually.” And that gets his attention. His entire body turns to face toward her, and he almost trips on the step that separates his kitchen from his dining room.

She almost feels bad for assuming he was being a calloused asshole about the whole thing. He’s clearly here to play for keeps.

“What do you need me to do?” he asks, and he’d seemed a lot more drunk 30 seconds ago, when he wasn’t focused on her with dark anger somewhere behind his eyes.

She picks the broach out of her back pocket and hands it over, watching him play with it in his fingers.

“It’s a video camera,” she tells him, and his eyes light up. “I had it on me during the trial. The whole trial. I think certain bits would catch the public’s attention in a nice way. Have Pepper pick them out, and then you let it go.”

Stark grins. “Oh, I know a few back channels I can drop this down. Sure you won’t get in trouble?"

“I’m going to get in trouble, Stark. So much trouble. Just make sure you don’t do the same.”

She turns to go up the staircase, ready to fetch something out of Pepper’s wardrobe – assuming she has anything inconspicuous – when Stark’s voice stops her on the first stair.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“For what?” she asks, before she can think better of it.

“For letting them see you. If you want to use the media as a tool in your belt, you’ve got to be prepared for what comes. They’re going to bite at you, and they’re going to bite hard. They’ll come to know you more in three days than you’ve ever been known by them. Are you sure you’re ready to have all your secrets exposed?”

“You’re not drunk, are you.”

“Sometimes, Miss Widow, when your tolerance is as high as mine, you just have to pretend, and make the best of it.”

She has to hand it to him. He's a better liar than she’d anticipated.

 

**75 Hours before the Execution**

She gets a secure message from Fury that simply reads “World Security Council.”

 

**73 Hours before the Execution**

The edited recording hits the web, and the world goes wild.

 

 

**what's trending on twitter?**

#battleofnewyork

#avengers

#stillmissing

#clintbarton

#whoisbarton

#justalienthings

 

 

 **My Madness** @alliedavis

@kassyreynolds THAT’S THE GUY THAT SAVED ME! THAT’S HIM! #clintbarton #saveclintbarton #battleofnewyork

 

 **Fox News** @FoxNews

BREAKING NEWS: American soldier up for immediate execution during the chaos surrounding the #battleofnewyork. Reasons unclear. #whoisbarton

 

_May 16, 2012_

Hello again guys and girls and everything in-between or around. Welcome back to the Outspoken!

Now, I know that on my last entry, I said that I was going to talk about the cochlear implant debate today. (“again?” you all sigh. yes, again, it’s fucking important) However, I want to take this update for a more specific purpose, and you’ve probably guessed it already.

Clint Barton.

Maybe an hour ago, no one knew who this guy was. Well, I mean, you have your grainy cellphone videos of _someone_ running around New York. And you have multiple testimonials of people who were _there_ saying that he helped many civilians, even going as far to risk his life to get some trapped people out of a bus. And you have his friends and coworkers in SHIELD testifying on his account.

What you don’t have is any official reason _why_ he’s being charged. Oh, wait. Excuse me. What you don’t have any official reason _why he’s being fucking executed in three days._

Oops. I was supposed to stay unbiased here, wasn’t it?

Guess the cat’s out of the bag now.

 

 

**67 Hours before the Execution**

Barney is the most unpredictable part of her plan. He certainly took the longest to find. The time, however, was well spent, because no one can take his place. He’s got the words of a conman, the smile of a heartthrob, and the family ties to bring it all together.

She needs this. She needs the media to chase this down the rabbit hole. She needs them good and deep, so the journey up will be a long one.

When she gets to the cabin, he isn’t there, but his jeep is, and there’s nothing around for miles. As with Stark, she waits in his kitchen, jumping up to sit on the countertop. Next to the coffee maker.

At some point, her life will stop being filled with boys who drink nothing but alcohol and coffee.

That’s Clint’s brand, too. She can smell it permeating the air, and she fights the urge to throw the appliance on the floor and trample it as she’d done her SIM card.

When she and Clint had been sent to Moscow, years ago now, on a mission that they knew would keep them there for months, they’d only been allowed to take what they could carry. So they loaded up their backpacks and flew and hitchhiked and climbed all the way up to their destination. And the very first thing Clint had pulled out of that damn duffel had been a coffee maker.

“Russia doesn’t make them like they do in the U.S.,” he’d chirped.

“You mean they don’t make them out of cheap plastic with mechanisms that stop working after a few months? No, they don’t. Russia makes things to survive. Appliances, handguns, people.”

“You think Americans aren’t made to survive? All right then, let’s make a bet. First one of us to die pays up.”

She bats at the coffee maker in a fit of petulance, and it falls off the counter, gathering enough force to unplug itself. It impacts with a painful clatter, and the leftover coffee grounds – still inside – scatter in a wet mess.

“To what do I owe the pleasure,” a voice speaks dryly from across the room, and her heart almost leaves its place in her chest when she half-recognizes it.

But it’s Barney, standing in the doorway with his hand on his 9 mil and _damn_ she hadn’t even heard the door open.

She thinks about conjuring a smile – a flirtatious little thing that won’t be able to reach her eyes – and knows immediately that it won’t work. Barton boys are smart. They don’t fall for the half-assed temptation she’d be able to manage right now. Maybe if she were on her game, but not now. Not when she has so many more hours of this to go, and only so many masks she can afford to wear out before the end.

“Barney,” she greets. No inflection to her voice. “My name is Natasha Romanoff.” _Full name._ “I was in the Battle of New York with your brother. I’ve been his partner in SHIELD for many years.” _Full story._ “He was recently sentenced to death; a sentence which will be carried out in less than three days.” _Like stripping off a layer of skin._ “I need your help to keep that from happening.” _Like opening a festering wound to clear out the bursting pus._

There’s a stretching silence and Natasha lets herself imagine lying down on the counter and going to sleep while this man tries to decide how he wants to respond to her. When she sees Clint again, she’ll be sure to tell him that he’s a thousand times quicker than his brother. This man wouldn’t last a moment in the field.

Which is when Barney says, “I think I might be missing some important information.”

“What would you like to know? I’m an open book.”

“Well, ma’am. For starters, what’s the Battle of New York?”

 

**66 Hours before the Execution**

Of course he hadn’t been in contact with the outside world. When you leave to live in a deserted cabin to avoid the fallout from your sordid past, you don’t _keep in touch_. And really, how likely is it that a smart man like Barney would believe a wild girl who showed up, knocked his coffee maker on the floor, and then started spouting about aliens?

She was totally justified in having drugged him and stuck him in the trunk. She was on a _clock_.

**63 Hours before the Execution**

At least it’s hard to deny the truth when it’s staring you in the face. Barney walks up and down a few times, along the once-a-street where Natasha had let him out of the trunk. It was as close to the center of the damage as she could safely get them. Barney runs his fingers through his hair – _the same way_ – and turns back to Natasha.

“You said they were gonna kill my little brother?” He says it smoothly enough, but his eyes are overwhelmed with anger and fear. Which is good, for her. Anger and fear, she can use. Control, she can use. Apathy, would have been a problem.

“You want to help save him?” she asks, sweetly. It’s less work now, to smile. They’re on the same page.

“You got a plan, love?”

“I’ve always got a plan. But we’re going to need to get you some new clothes. And a shave.”

 

 

 **To:** spanglypants@starkintranet.com

 **From:** uato2h19ads@gmail.com

 **Subject:** timing

_(sent 1604)_

Been a rollercoaster. I’m set, ready to spike?

 

 

 **To:** uato2h19ads@gmail.com

 **From:** spanglypants@starkintranet.com

 **Subject:** RE: timing

_(sent 1605)_

Oh, gosh. I wonder who this could possibly be.

 

 

**60 Hours before the Execution**

It’s been almost two days since she slept, but her weariness drops away for the slightest moment when Barney steps in front of that microphone. She's standing in a warehouse that she keeps, complete with a couch and a TV. It’s not the kind of place you set up satellite, so the image is fuzzy. A throwback to an older generation.

Speaking of older generation, Rogers is there. He’s standing behind Barney in full-regalia – Captain America! – and solemnly nodding along to the shit that Barney is spewing. Not that she’s upset about the shit. It’s some really good shit, and the media is probably already eating it up.

“Even when I had nothing, I had Clint,” Barney sniffles, looking down and away from the camera at the exact right moment. “It was Mom’s dying wish. We looked out for each other, you know?” It leaves him the perfect opportunity to look back up, meeting the eyes of the audience by glaring straight at the lens, all as he says, “And I’m not gonna let them take that away from me.”

Oh wow, he’s managing real tears. Natasha gives herself an internal thumbs up as she shifts her weight to her other foot. She can’t calm herself enough to sit on the couch, not even in this outfit. She’s got a beautiful winter dress on, complete with avant-garde hood and black tights. She’s the picture of perfect couture, right down to the $1500 heels.

It’s an outfit made for fishing.

Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she holds her cellphone in her left hand, tight against her ribcage. When it vibrates, her whole body will feel it.

“I don’t understand!” Barney exclaims on the screen. “Brainwashing? That sounds like _not_ his fault. I don’t understand.”

While she’d been getting Barney, Stark had leaked the nature of Clint’s “crime.” The public was taking it as predicted. In a world where magic is suddenly a reality, the last thing you’d want to do is kill the only known person to ever break a spell.

Right on cue, Barney loses it, his tears getting too thick to speak through. Rogers places a comforting hand on his shoulder and pulls him off to the side where he can compose himself in peace.

“I,” Rogers announces calmly, looking down at the podium for dramatic effect. “I also do not understand. Clint Barton is my friend and my colleague. I depend on him to put the lives of citizens first, and he did so stunningly.”

He speaks with the confidence of someone who knows large crowds. Not the confidence that Stark has. It’s something deeper. Something older. Stark endured torture at the hands of his enemies, and betrayal at the hands of his friends. Stark _suffered_ , but in the end, he had more than he’d started with. Stark gained.

In contrast, Rogers _watched_ people suffer. Rogers lost.

In another life, Natasha suspects that she and Rogers would have made good friends.

“After being _forced_ by _magic_ that we don’t understand,” the American icon continues – and all of America is watching – “I demand that Barton be released. He broke free of an enchantment. Just because he couldn’t do it soon enough to please the Government men, who I did _not_ see on that battlefield, he’s being punished?”

The phone buzzes and she pulls it out to read, _Timothy Taylor_

“So why,” Rogers continues. “Why, in this devastating mass of confusion and fear, are we _blaming_ him? _Accusing_ the man who rose from the ashes. I see a victim! A survivor! What do you see?”

 

**58 Hours before the Execution**

Timothy Taylor was born in suburban Oklahoma. He’d grown up with streets just wide enough to be dangerous, fields just small enough to be boring, and a father with just enough income to get by.

Growing up without experiencing either suffering or triumph, Timothy accepted the fact that he would walk the mediocre line until the day he died. He bounced around from job to job, finishing his college education, but not doing anything with it. His managers spoke generically well of him, because they rarely remembered anything specific. He fell in and out of love, rented a tiny apartment in D.C., which he shared with two other people, and just got on with things.

There were only two possibly interesting facts about Timothy. The first was that he killed people for a living.

Specifically, he was the last person on the assembly line of government executions. He was in charge of the last valve on the lethal injection IV, and he was on shift in two and a half days.

The second interesting fact was that he met Natasha Romanoff and lived to tell the tale.

 

**55 Hours before the Execution**

Time is becoming unmanageable. When the decision had initially been read aloud in that court room, there was so much time for everything to come together. Three days is a lot of time to someone in this profession. But now, as it's all nearing that 48-hour mark, she’s being reminded again of how little you can actually do in an hour.

She marches down the alleyway to where Pepper is standing with a pair of jeans folded over her arm, and Natasha grabs it as she goes. It’s a pair of unassuming J. C. Penny jeans, and she’s already ripped away her tights. She steps into the jeans on the walk, hitching her dress differently, so now it’s a long shirt instead. She ties her hair back into a pony tail and wipes her makeup off on the inside of her wrists, pulling her sleeves down to cover it afterward.

In a hundred feet, she’s made the journey from enchantress to distraught lover.

She comes out of the alley on the other side and hails a cab. She thinks for moment, that it’s the same one she just got out of on the other side, – and wouldn’t that be the _funniest thing_? – but it’s a trick of the light.

The ride downtown takes 40 minutes, but she doesn’t complain because heaven knows the country could have just shut down after everything that happened. New York is barely moving, even two weeks out.

So instead, she takes the opportunity to sleep fitfully and contemplate her own existence. Or the lack thereof.

It feels like a lack thereof. She keeps forgetting why she’s doing this. The reasoning, the plan, is wavering on the edges of her consciousness. She hadn’t expected to be this weary, after just a couple days of sleeplessness. She’s got another two to go, and she hasn’t built rest cycles into the schedule.

Maybe she’s getting old.

The thought is strikingly funny, because of all the things she’s ever imagined would become of her, _old_ was not on the list. Not with the serum in her veins. Not with the kind of life she leads.

She has never been conditioned to fear or hate the idea of being old, and it’s blissfully appealing, this longing that she didn’t know she had. It’s unfair. She had taught her mind and body so well. She, as an entity, hadn’t dared fight for anything for so long that she no longer even felt a hunger. And then Clint Barton and his stupid reckless abandon had ruined it.

It hadn’t started out as a desire _for_ something. Rather, it had begun as a desire for _not_. She’d been standing at the foot of a twenty-three story building and had the severe displeasure of watching her partner fall off the roof.

He still insists he’d jumped, but she’d been watching. That had been a fucking fall.

Either way, he’d teetered for a moment, and then gone over, and she did not want to watch him die.

That was it. A simple wish to not watch her partner’s brains spread out across the pavement, and the floodgates were opened. She didn’t want a hundred things. She didn’t want to keep standing around. She didn’t want to be in this meeting. She didn’t want to eat one more precooked canned meat meal.

Her whole existence became the imagery of an adolescent meme.

Do not want.

The _do_ wanting, of course, came much later, as though her mind was only able to return one function at a time.

The taxi comes to a halt and the driver looks back expectantly. He seems bored, and Natasha wonders what his story is. What does he hope will happen before the next two days are over? Is he thinking about Barton right now?

It’s a stupid bunny trail. She barely has enough in her to get out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. She certainly doesn’t have enough in her to care for the stranger behind the wheel. So she throws too much money through the window, the sheer amount of bills silencing any possible protest at being paid in such a condescending manner, and leaves the car.

She crosses the sidewalk and goes straight into the building with the grey stone walls. Rogers is waiting for her on the other side, and smooth as butter he tucks her underneath his arm and laughs like something she said was funny.

“Thank god for Captain America,” she jokes. But it doesn’t come out as funny as she’d meant it to. Instead, some of her real gratitude leaks out, ruining the moment.

She’s nothing but shattered crystal these days. There’s nothing left but the drying droplets pooled in the curved pieces of glass. And it’s only going to get worse.

“Are you ready?” Rogers asks, just as they’re going through the thick curtain. As if it matters. As if he’s asked in time to actually do anything about it if the answer is no.

It’s all right, though, because she’s ready. Clint is alone and he doesn’t even know she’s coming for him, all fire and rage. She’s tired and drained and desperate, but _god_ is she ready.

Then she’s in front of the cameras, bright light changing the contours of her face. It’s like interrogation lights, in that way. There’s nowhere to hide. She shivers in fear, doing nothing to cover the emotion because this is what she’s here for.

She looks directly into the camera lens, as Rogers had done, and _never_ trust someone who looks into the camera instead of at the live audience. Those are not the people overcome with emotion. Those are the tacticians.

“My name is Natasha Romanoff,” she announces to the world. “I am an Agent of SHIELD. And I would like my lover back.”

Two of those things are true.

 

 

**what's trending on twitter?**

#saveclintbarton

#battleofnewyork

#avengers

#natasharomanoff

#clintasha

#therealcriminal

#stillmissing

 

 **Justice for All** @thedailyfight

why are we, the public, still having to fight for the truth? why do They still expect us to lie down and believe them?? #saveclintbarton

 

 **The Latest** @KellyRichards

I want to cry for her, she’s so strong. She’s probably seen so much. She was there too, saving people #natasharomanoff #clintasha

 

 **No Stone** @unpopularopinions

is no one going to talk about this family’s past? Or wait, I forgot, sad white guy means all is forgiven #saveclintbarton #howaboutno

 

 **Fox News** @FoxNews

Video clip of Barney Barton assaulting unarmed woman, caught by security footage!

 

 **JamesWasHere** @JamesPatry143

my god i can't watch that. he just attacks her for no reason #barneybarton #therealcriminal

 

**48 Hours before the Execution**

It’s all already spiraling out of control. To his credit, Barney stays in the limelight for a lot longer than Natasha had anticipated. When the official orders for his arrest come down, however, he bolts. She catches him outside, mostly on accident, while he waits for his ride.

“I warned you that it would get bad,” she says, preemptively. She doesn’t think he’ll be angry with her, but it’s always wise to hedge bets.

“I knew before you warned me. Took them longer than I thought.”

“I had some friends playing interference online. They were looking out for you as long as they could. But they’re only human.”

“I hear that’s not so true,” Barney laughs, but lets the matter drop there.

“Why’d you do it?” she asks. Apparently her rapidly approaching breaking point comes with a free side of morbid curiosity. That or she’s still fishing for information on Clint; even though he’d tell her anything she asked now.

Old habits die hard.

“Why’d I beat up the lady?” Barney confirms, mouth full of a cigarette. She nods, and he laughs roughly in his throat. Then he reaches up and takes the cigarette to hold it in one hand. He blows the smoke carefully away from her and smirks at the rising sun.

“Same reason my dad did it, I guess. Because I could. You ever do something just because you could, Miss Natasha Romanoff?”

“No.”

“You think you ever will?”

She shrugs. “If I’m being honest, I have no idea. I’ve never been presented with the opportunity.”

She’s not really thinking about the conversation. The direction that everything has taken means it’s about time to implement the next plan. The media is against them, and that’s only going to get worse, and Timothy is only as good as his circumstances.

It’s time to lay the groundwork for the final movement. The charge of the light brigade, for when everything else goes to shit.

 

**44 Hours before the Execution**

Everything goes to shit a little more quickly than she’d been able to predict. Someone out there, probably Fury’s “World Security Council,” gets their hands on a video of Clint pounding out someone’s brains in a department store. He’s using a hammer, and there’s not much left when he’s done.

There’s an uncomfortable prickling on the back of her neck when she realizes that she doesn’t actually know if the video is real or not. It’s not like she’s ever asked him “have you ever pulverized someone’s brains with a hammer?” because they have a rule about mixing their relationship with work.

Clint Barton was an angry, angry teenager. He’d been very upfront with her about that fact, and he had landed himself a lot of trouble before he crossed the magical line that got him sent to juvie – and straight into Coulson’s hands – rather than killed in a back alley.

So it’s entirely possible that that’s her Clint she’s watching kill an unarmed man.

She decides it doesn’t matter, either way. Her own history is about to come bubbling to the surface, and it’s going to knock this YouTube sensation out of the park. What’s a little bludgeoning among friends?

 

**35 Hours before the Execution**

She’s ready to kill someone. It might be her, it might be Stark, it might be everyone she’s ever had as a contact in this shitty city. Her rational side knows that joining an op like this borders on the suicidal, but she can’t _believe_ that there’s absolutely no one out there with the guts to go for it.

She's tired. The “always slightly pissed” part of her personality is standing out in full force, and she knows she’d suck at lying on the fly right now. That makes it twice as important that everything be lined up properly for the final event. They have to get this right on the first take, but her current roster leaves her without a point man. She needs someone in front who isn't afraid of a little rain of bullets and, oddly enough, no one is taking her up on the offer.

In the end, she has to call Rogers. She’d been hoping to end his involvement with the parts of this scheme that were above the board, but she can’t think of anyone else. Especially no one that she trusts. Maybe she’d always planned to have it be Rogers, and she just hadn’t realized it until the moment arrived.

Rogers picks up on the second ring and says, “Natasha?” like a fucking amateur, and she doesn’t even have the energy to be pissed.

“I need your help with something else. And you’re going to have to ditch this phone when we’re done.”

“That’s great, Natasha, but, uh…have you seen the news lately.”

Shit. She’d forgotten that that was coming. Or, she’d forgotten that it might affect the decisions Rogers made here and now. She wonders, briefly, which parts of her past have been selectively disclosed to the media, but it really doesn’t matter any more than the veracity of Clint’s murder video.

“I haven’t seen it, Rogers, but I can guess what it is. Does this mean you won’t help me?”

“What?” he gasps. “No, of course not. I just thought you might like a warning about the shitstorm you’re currently in. What do you need me to do?”

 

 

 **CNN** @CNN

Viewer discretion advised! Charming Natasha’s true nature reveled in this horrifying torture video! #avengers #blackwidow

 

 **Harper Can** @HarperLeights

Aliens and spies, wtf is going on? maybe those two need to be shot. Weren’t they about to do that to Barton anyway? #battleofnewyork

 

 **Buck Up!** @LaciBuck69

so she a Nazi or something? that was Russia right? was she brainwashed too #soconfused #natasharomanoff #saveclintbarton #isthatstillathing?

 

 **Tracy May12** @TracyMay12

I got a twitter JUST to say you all SUCK! She saved me, ok?? I’d be dead! You suck! I hate this planet. #saveclintbarton #natasharomanoff

 

 

>Good morning, YouTube! Or good whatever-time-it-is-where-you-are-right-now.

>Presumably you’ve all seen this latest with the fast-moving Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff story. Star-crossed lovers and all that. Hell, by the time I’ve finished uploading this, there’s probably going to be even more disturbing evidence out there, regarding their livelihood.

>Now, I do want to be clear, before I get started, that I’m not on their side. I don’t think that crappy childhoods

>and WOW did they have crappy childhoods

>excuse the kind of behavior that we’re seeing.

>I’m definitely not going to show clips, so don’t worry, but I almost threw up by halfway through. This isn’t a movie, kids. That little cupcake you saw crying over her boyfriend is mutilating that guy, and she’s not slowing down.

>I literally had to stop before the halfway point.

>I love horror movies and shit, but I was literally going to be sick. I’m probably going to have nightmares.

>I hope you appreciate what I go through for you all.

 

 

PATRY: Good morning ladies and gentleman, I’m here with Jane Foster to offer a new perspective on the Clint Barton trial.

FOSTER: It's Doctor Jane Foster. And the word trial indicates that information is being objectively considered.

PATRY: You don’t think he was given a fair trial?

FOSTER: What kind of trial have you ever seen that ends with an execution three days out from the sentencing? Seems like someone’s in a rush.

PATRY: I will admit that’s a little strange, but surely there are cases where that’s been done? I hesitate to use a phrase like “martial law” so blithely, but it does come to mind. Aren’t there special rules for soldiers out there on the battlefield?

FOSTER: I’m honestly not sure what’s more disturbing, the fact that you just indicated American soldiers are shot by their superiors or that you called Clint a soldier. He’s just a kid, Ms. Patry. For all the horror he’s seen.

PATRY: And done.

FOSTER: Pardon?

PATRY: Seen _and_ done. SHIELD certainly doesn’t seem to have good judgment when it comes to hiring its members, does it? How common are sordid pasts there, do you think?

FOSTER: Ok, I see how you’re trying to steer the conversation here. First, you can’t take an organization like SHIELD, which seeks out talented and broken people and turns them into defenders of the peace, and be surprised when it’s full of once-criminals. That’s like looking at a rehabilitation program and saying “wow, this place sure does have a lot of drug addicts in it.”

PATRY: So SHIELD is mostly ex-cons?

FOSTER: I have no idea what SHIELD is “mostly” made of. All I know is that they were entirely the reason a giant alien army didn’t destroy New York. Anyone out there remember that fact?

PATRY: Of course, we’re grateful to SHIELD and the Avengers for what they did. And to Thor, of course, who I hear you have a personal connection with. Care to comment on that?

FOSTER: No.

PATRY: Ok, what about Selvig then? I hear he had an interesting encounter with the same brainwashing that Barton did. Is he available for comment?

FOSTER: Eric is…considering his options.

PATRY: He doesn’t want to weigh in here? Seems like a topic near to his heart.

FOSTER: Are you kidding? They’re trying to murder the other man who was caught by Loki’s spell. You really think he’s going to be showing his face any time soon?

PATRY: So you know where he is?

FOSTER: Give me some credit, Ms. Patry. I wouldn’t compromise my friend by looking for him in this kind of a media storm.

 

 

**29 Hours before the Execution**

Foster is a surprise, slowing down the frenzy that is her own backstory. “Thor’s girlfriend” is the sub-caption to “Jane Foster” and Natasha can’t help but laugh at how pissed she’ll be over that. Not “theoretical physicist” or “expert on the Einstein Rosenberg bridge” or even just “scientist.”

Not that “Thor’s girlfriend” isn’t _true_ – Natasha has enough connections to know the veracity of that particular claim – but it isn’t exactly a title Foster has worked her entire life for.

Still, it’s all a matter of time – which is running out faster than it had been – and the attention will soon shift back to Natasha. She honestly hadn’t anticipated how quickly people had lumped Clint in with her. If she’d known they’d condemn him by association, she might have made a different play.

One of her burner phones rings, and she pulls it out of her pocket. She stares at it for a moment, willing it to just shut up, because this is the phone with the number she gave to Timothy. He’s the only one with this number. He’s supposed to call her if something goes wrong.

She accepts the call and puts it to her ear.

“Natasha?” the breathy voice begins, and she futilely tries to will calm into it.

“What’s wrong, Timothy?”

“They switched me out!” he exclaims, and she grits her teeth because this is what she was expecting. They’re moving so quickly. How are they moving this quickly?

“Did anyone speak to you in person?”

“No, I just got an email saying I was on a different shift. I’m not going to be there! I can’t help you, I’m so sorry.”

She hangs up, and ditches the cell phone.

Clint asked her, once, if she knows what she does to people. She had replied that of course she knows. She plans it. She constructs it. She builds an infrastructure of false loyalty for people to hang their own motivations on and, before they know it, they’re in the palm of her hand.

“And do you know,” Clint had continued, “what happens to them after you abandon them?”

“Usually they die,” she’d had answered back flippantly. And he’d let it go at that.

It’s not the whole truth. Or, it’s not the most important part of the truth. Not everyone she lies to is a target. She doesn’t walk through life leaving a string of bodies in her wake. That’s for ghosts like the Winter Soldier, who don’t really exists outside of their jobs.

She exists. She exists in the memory of ballet shoes against her feet. In the taste of vindaloo made by a widow in India. In the 30 foot fall into the cold water of the Atlantic. In the feel of Egyptian cotton against her back and the face of Clint above her, as naked and desperate as she.

She exists more in those moments than some people do in their entire lives, and she can’t help but wonder how that happened. The little girl they’d dragged out from the burning mansion had not gone to a world where people exist. She’s breaking the rules, _wanting_ things like this. She’s fracturing reality with nothing but her own desires. Do they not understand what happens if he dies? Topple countries? No, she’ll burn the world. That’s a thing she can do now. She knows Jane who knows Thor who knows Loki.

She looks out the window of the bus she’s on and pulls down her sunglasses to better see the passing pedestrians. Over half a million people in this city alone, and none of them understand the danger they’re in. Every time they argue in favor of the execution, they’re arguing in favor of a burnt Earth. Rotting corpses and ruined air.

They used to call her the Red Death, but they haven’t seen anything yet.

 

 

 **To:** uato2h19ads@gmail.com

 **From:** ry43732@startover.com

 **Subject:** trnsprt

_(sent 1448)_

The plane’s good to go. I even figured out how to cloak it, _without_ you having to ask.

 

 **To:** ry43732@startover.com

 **From:** uato2h19ads@gmail.com

 **Subject:** RE: trnsprt

_(sent 1449)_

Don’t do this _here_.

 

**12 Hours before the Execution**

She’s tingling with desperation, waiting in the back of the van. Rogers is next to her, along with the rest of the slap-dash team she'd managed to pull together. People who owe her favors or want to be owed favors. People who are just in it for the story.

_I broke an Avenger out of prison when I was a kid!_

They’re all wearing honest-to-God ski masks, and her delicate sensibilities can’t help but cringe. It’s so on-the-nose. However, it’s also necessary. These are people she doesn’t want to know each other. More importantly, they’re about to encounter cameras that aren't turned off yet that she doesn’t want to know her. Or Rogers.

Poor Rogers. The boy who got swept up in a war and then an ocean, and he’s still here, trying to do the right thing. It really is admirable, and she hopes she remembers to tell him this someday. She stopped trying to do the right thing a long time ago. She just does what she needs to.

They get the signal to go, and she mourns that she doesn’t have the time or space to do any of her pre-mission routine. Not that she depends on it - she never depends on anything - but it would have been nice. If there’s ever a day she’s willing to cast lots on the side of luck, it’s today. There’s nothing she won’t try today.

The first team leaves their place, and she can hear it over the coms, prays they don’t get themselves killed, but it’s all red red red in her ledger anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

She doesn’t notice she’s shaking until Rogers puts a hand on her knee. She does him a favor, and doesn’t break his fingers.

“You ok?” he asks.

“I’m awesome!” she chirps, and it takes her a moment to realize she put on the wrong mask. That was the preppy high school cheerleader, not the calm Avenger. She doesn’t realize until Roger’s eyes twist in confusion, and he darts a glance at the rest of the people in their van.

None of them noticed the slip. Or if they did, they assumed it was sarcasm.

She could play it off as sarcasm, theoretically. She flips through a few masks in her mind, trying to find one to suit her purposes, but the cataloging is all out of place. Nothing is labeled properly, and she resorts to fumbling through them all.

“Natasha,” Rogers murmurs. Same tone of voice Clint had used a couple weeks ago on the goddamn helicarrier just moments after she’d _let_ Loki inside her head. She’d let an ancient god fuck with her mind on the off-chance that it would give her the smallest piece of information to save Barton.

And here she is, weeks out and Barton is in more danger than ever, and everything is already out of her hands why didn’t she see this coming?

The masks she holds in her mind’s eye all crumble into thick plastic shards, useless and sharp. Nothing here will cover her. Nothing will ever cover her again. When all her outer layers have been stripped away, she will be raw and bleeding, open to her soul, and then they’ll strip that away, too.

“I’m just tired,” Natasha says. All Natasha. There’s no one else left.

It doesn’t occur to her that she’s leaning on Roger's shoulder until they get the signal that it’s their turn to move, and she has to jerk her head up to actually do so.

 

>If he was capable of this kind of violence in civilian life, then he was always a loose cannon in military life. This brainwashing thing is just an excuse. He saw an opportunity to finally utilize this rage, and he took it.

 

>The footage we have from the trial is clearly edited together. Who knows what really happened in there. We don’t even know where it came from.

 

>You can’t hypnotize people to defy their own nature, it’s a matter of fact. A non-murderer isn’t going to kill someone just because someone’s whispering in their ear about it.

 

>We don’t know that this isn’t permanent. I have a son who’s a soldier on active duty right now. I don’t want a man like Barton anywhere near him. Who can really say what the long term affects here will be? It’s a tragedy, yes, but that’s just the way it is. We’re playing with gods and monsters here. If we allow common sense to be overridden, what are we risking? What if, next time, the goddamn aliens – sorry, I’m sorry – what if, next time, those aliens come out of the sky, and we don’t win? What if Clint Barton was the plan all along? Is one man’s life really worth the autonomy of this whole world?

 

>Magic isn’t a thing. What kind of fucked up argument is ‘he was under a spell?’ Spells aren’t a _thing_!

**11 Hours before the Execution**

They make it all the way into the cell block before the whole thing gets blown. She has her hand on the door when the alarm goes off, and they both freeze.

“What’s the play?” Rogers asks. He doesn’t seem at all perturbed by the fact that they’re facing all kinds of shit, and she could have kissed him for it.

“We’re taking this all the way,” she informs him, and he nods solemnly.

She finishes wiring the door and they jump back behind the nearest hallway. Most of the other people she’d gotten involved had been let go once they’d made it past the back gate security. There’s a truck waiting right at the exit, and all she has to do now is get to Clint.

For once in her life, what she has to do and what she wants to do are exactly the same thing. Time slows in its perfect alignment as she listens to the unforgiving countdown timer.

This is their moment of peace.

The door blows with a shriek of twisting metal and spritzing carbon. She ducks back to stand in front of the twisted door, but Rogers doesn’t follow her. He hesitates, looking down the hallway that is supposed to be their exit route.

“They’re almost here,” he says, but she already knows that from the way the muscles in his shoulders tense. She knew that from the luck that is her life. Of course they’re almost here. They’re always almost here.

She pushes through the door, catching her hip on the frame. The metal is still hot and burns through her clothes, searing her skin a bit. She ignores it, because there’s no time to treat it and what’s one more scar?

She ignores it because the fourth cell down has a shadowed figure struggling to its feet and suddenly her whole body could be on fire and melting and she wouldn’t be able to feel the difference. She collides with the bars, she’s running at them so hard, and his fingers grasp at hers. She rips off her ski mask with one hand while she tries to push through the bars with the other.

“Natasha!” cries a voice, but it’s not the voice she’s expecting. It’s not the voice struggling to find words in the semi-darkness in front of her eyes. It’s Rogers from behind her.

“They’re here!”

They don’t have time.

She jerks her hands away from Clint’s and smears more of Stark’s metal-melting goop around the hinges of the door.

“I don’t want to die,” Clint finally chokes out. “Natasha, I don’t want to die. I thought I did. I used to fantasize about it, but god Natasha, not anymore. Get me out of here.”

“Get back from the door,” she spits out, because she can’t think about that right now. She can’t think about what’s going to happen and how she doesn’t have time to explain it and how the guards are just on the other side of that wall. She can hear Rogers knocking them out, but he’s not going to kill them, because they’re just doing their job.

She would kill them.

But then, that’s why she asked Rogers to come, rather than asking someone like her.

Clint scrambles back from the door, eyes still fixed on her, and her eyes are fixed on the hinges. She turns away at the last second because the burn will be bright, and she can’t afford to be blind in the upcoming moments.

Then his body collides with hers and she has a split second to wonder if he burned his hands getting the door open, because that was a little too quick, but then he’s kissing her – lips, nose, forehead – and she can’t think of anything at all.

“Thank you, thank you,” they’re whispering, one to another to God.

“Do that _later_!” Rogers screams from the hallway, and then they’re running, taking the left branch instead of the right and hoping it’ll get them outside anyway. She’s got her fingers encircling his wrist, pulling him along. It’s not practical, tactically speaking, as it inhibits everyone’s movements, but she doesn’t give a damn and hangs on all the tighter.

“Didn’t take you for sentimental,” he laughs behind her, but she can hear the way there are still tears in his eyes and fear in his throat, and he’s shaking beneath her touch.

Why is this so different? They’ve both faced the possibility of death in cells across the world, but this one was different. This one wasn’t earned. Not deserved. He doesn’t deserve to be here.

She hopes he knows that.

Rogers bursts through a door ahead of them, and she feels the cool night air on her face at the same moment that she hears the slide of a bolt. Multiple bolts. Rogers grinds to a halt in front of her, and her heart drops as she wonders if she’s about to figure out the answer to the question “is Captain America bulletproof?”

Somehow she doubts it.

She and Clint also slide to a stop, and she manages to pull her ski mask back on one-handed. She tries to turn to run back the way they came, but Clint slows her, craning his neck to see if Rogers is going to be all right, and then the hallway is full of men. They have hands on her and Clint, and they’re everywhere, and she’s so tired.

She can’t help but hesitate in the fight. Rogers will be disappointed if she snaps necks. Banner will be too, wherever he is right now. Probably passing back through Chihuahua, if she’s got the timing right in her head.

The men are ripping them apart from each other, and her weak fingers can’t keep a hold on his wrist. Rogers is there, a massive presence, but he’s doing little other than try and shield the hallway. If he starts throwing punches, they’re all going to get shot.

“Don't!” Clint screams, as they’re wrenched far enough away from each other. She plants one foot and tries to lunge back toward him, but their fingers just manage to brush, and then he’s being jerked down where she can’t follow.

“I don’t want to die like this!” he shrieks, and it echoes in her head.

How is she supposed to tell him it’ll all be ok?

She’s on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid, when Roger’s arms circle her from behind. Most of the men had filed into the hallway to deal with the more violent couple, leaving the seemingly placid Rogers mostly alone. He’d taken advantage of it, and every guard who’d remained outside is lying on the ground in a semi-conscious daze.

He’d then gotten the drop on those pulling at her from behind and wrapped himself around her. He’s pulling her back. Out of the building and into the night air, without Clint. She screams, a wild and feral battle cry that mixes with the echoes of Clint’s desperation.

She can’t see him anymore. His captors have turned a hallway and she knows it’s only a matter of time before they drug him into a more compliant dead weight. He must not have slept since the sentencing. He probably hasn’t eaten anything either.

Has she eaten anything?

Her body is fighting on autopilot, kicking Rogers with the goal of maximum damage. She bites him pretty hard at one point, when he pulls the door shut in front of them, and she can no longer even see the turn they dragged Clint around.

She hadn’t expected Rogers to be so resilient against her onslaught, but it’s apparently a day for surprises. Her second-hand serum pales in comparison to the real thing, and it doesn’t help that she’s taken her body to its limits.

“Give him back!” she shrieks. Over and over and over. No control. No training. No sense. Had the oxygen been sucked out of her lungs, she would have fought with more rationality. But the crystal form is broken, and the water all dried up.

She’d known this moment would be hard, but she hadn’t understood. In the same way you jump off a cliff and don’t understand until the moment you are alone in space.

The needle is a surprise, but it’s too late by the time she realizes, fading away into unwilling sleep.

Her dreams are just the echoes of a lost boy screaming, “Help me, help me, help me,” until the echoes bounce back unrecognizable from the blurred edges of the limited world.

 

**8 Hours before the Execution**

“You drugged me,” she mutters around a dry tongue.

“I had a suspicion you wouldn’t leave,” Rogers sighs. They’re in a motel room, judging from the smell and the cracked plaster ceiling. “I’ve lived through a similar experience, and I didn’t.”

“Behold the mighty wisdom of Captain America,” she returns bitterly. “I’ve killed people for less.”

“I know,” he answers. He’s leaning against the dresser, and he doesn’t appear to think she’ll follow through on the threat. Or maybe he just thinks she wouldn’t be able to pull it off; confident in Erskine's serum and all that it’s given him.

Maybe he’s just not afraid of death.

He’s changed his clothes into a casual civilian outfit, and she realizes he’s done the same for her. She assumes he’s burned everything they were wearing, and doesn’t do him the disservice of asking.

She does, however, inquire, “Did we get away clean?”

He nods, so she twists her legs around to stand. She could use some water, but she’ll grab some between calling the cab and waiting for it to show. There’s probably a vending machine in the lobby. Rogers probably has cash.

 

**6 Hours before the Execution**

She knows they’ve moved him already. He might be in a circular route – which she doesn’t have time to get her hands on – or they might have already brought him to the execution facility. Either way, she heads for the facility, ready to make her plea.

It’s a shame she doesn’t have any information to barter with. When she’d come into SHIELD, she’d given them everything. She hadn’t kept anything useful for a rainy day. If she had some key hidden piece of information, she might deal for his life right now.

Instead she’s dealing for proximity.

“Let me do it,” she begs, when she finally gets let in to see the highest authority there. “Let me be there. He deserves that, at least. A face he knows.”

“He _deserves_ death, as has been decided by a federal hearing,” the man informs her with a sour expression.

“Please,” she begs. She hasn’t begged since she was thirteen. “Please let me be the one to do it. Or just let me be in there. Just let me be in there.”

“Absolutely not,” he snaps. “You think I don’t realize who it was that tried to break him out last night? Just because I can’t prove anything, doesn’t mean I don’t know. I’m not letting you anywhere near him. You’re lucky I’m letting you watch under armed guard and behind bulletproof glass.

 

**2 Hours before the Execution**

She’s sitting in the observation room. True to promise there are armed guards on either side, and she distracts herself by imagining all the ways she could kill them both before they realize she’s moving.

It’s better than looking through the glass into that room. The lights are off, thank god, so it’s just pitch blackness, but it’s not that much better than staring at the room itself.

 

**30 Minutes**

Rogers joins her first, sitting down beside her without a word. Stark is there next, Pepper on his arm. They’re both pale and Stark smells like whiskey, and she doesn’t blame him at all. Wishes he’d brought vodka for her. Would have been nice of him.

Another young woman slips in the back. Darcy Lewis. The young girl Clint had met in New Mexico. Jane Foster’s friend and assistant. She’s already crying, although she’s keeping it quiet. Natasha wonders what kind of person comes all this way, does all this, for a man she met once.

“I stole her ipod,” Clint had crowed, when he told her the story. Like it was the funniest thing in the world. "She was so mad."

Darcy sees Natasha and makes her way over. “Sorry that Jane couldn’t make it. She’s…dealing with things.”

Natasha nods her head once. She’s familiar with “dealing with things.” She hasn’t made it to every funeral she wanted to attend either.

_This is not a funeral._

It might as well be.

 

**20 Minutes**

Banner isn’t going to make it. She knows this. Doesn’t resent it.

 

**10 Minutes**

They bring him in, and she tips her head back to look at the ceiling instead of the way they’re dragging his body. He’s a dead weight in between the two guards, and she worries for a moment that they’ve drugged him with something.

But a second later he turns toward the glass and sees her. She can’t keep sitting, and walks to the window instead. Rogers follows her, though the others hang back.

“They’re wrong to do this,” Rogers tells her. “It wasn’t his fault.”

As though she doesn’t know. As though she doesn’t know that better than the whole world. As though she doesn’t know that better than Clint himself. Clint who is so scared as they strap him into the chair.

 

**8 minutes**

He can’t quite see them, from how the chair’s angled. It’s probably to give the condemned some sense of peace – not having to stare at the people watching him die – but it’s torture for Clint. He has to be able to see, so he cranes his head back to make eye contact with her.

He has to keep adjusting his view, as people walk back and forth in front of them, but he does so as needed.

 

**6 minutes**

Everyone is standing and wrapped around Natasha now, except for Darcy, who has somehow ended up in the middle, where Natasha is the one doing the wrapping. Concentric circles of human arms and bodies.

Poor Darcy. She’s never really seen death.

Not like this.

 

**5**

Everything is finished, leaving nothing but the slow torture of time.

 

**4**

There is nothing

 

**3**

but

 

**2**

 time

 

**1**

He looks away from her. In the last second, he looks away from her. Whether to shield him or her, she doesn’t know, but it cuts so deep.

 

**0**

When his back arches off the table, she loses what’s left of herself. She strikes at the glass with closed fists over and over and over. She screams the injustice of the world in every language she knows, flowing from one to the other like a cascade of rushing water. The others have backed away and she knows that Rogers is trying to placate the guards and she doesn’t care doesn’t care doesn’t care.

What if this were it?

She’s too deep in this mask to be able to tell the difference, because what if this was the end? Clint’s eyes roll back and she can’t breathe. Bloody fists of handprints are on the glass and she was wrong about assuming she wouldn’t fight like this for oxygen. This is her oxygen, and it has been ripped out of her and she’s still screaming.

There’s nothing

What if this were the end?

                            but

Thank god it’s the beginning.

                                    time is a funny thing. Trace it one way and you find an ending.

Trace it another and you’ll find the ending was the beginning. Or maybe the middle.

 

               trace                                                                       it                                                                   back

 

trace

 

 

 

it

 

 

 

 

 

 

down

 

 

 

**124 Hours before the Execution**

“Yeah, but what are the chances they actually kill him,” Stark scoffs. “He’s the big hero. How would they even spin that with the media?”

“Don’t underestimate then,” Natasha snaps. “But the media will have to be a big play of ours. It’s going to be the main distraction. Besides the fake break out attempt.”

“I have to ask,” Rogers interrupts gently. “Does Barton know how any of this is going down?”

“No,” she forces herself to answer. “And it has to stay that way. Once we leave this room, all communication about this goes on hold. We work on the real project under the table, while we pretend to be working on the things we talked about here. The break out attempt. The bribing or blackmailing of the guard; Fury’s figuring out which is better. The media, with getting Barney and with my playing the star-crossed lover.”

“What do you mean _playing_?” Stark remarks, but she ignores it.

“All that,” she continues, “is the front.”

“So,” Banner says, speaking for the first time, “What is it that you need from us _behind_ the front?”

“First, I need a drug. A very specific drug, which will do very specific things to a human body. Like look dead, without being dead. Second, I need someone in Mexico at the plant that manufactures the pharmaceuticals used for an execution.”

“That sounds like my job,” Banner smiles. “I’m familiar with factories in South America.”

“They’re not going to kill him,” Stark scoffs again. Natasha continues ignoring him. He's trying to convince himself, more than contradict her, anyway.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she says to Banner. “Stark, I’m putting you on the drug. You have until the sentencing to finish it and get it to Banner. I don’t want you working on it afterward. Security on us will get tight. Very tight. Even I don’t expect to be able to ditch eyes for more than a few minutes at a time. Our communications will be monitored, even the ones that we usually think of as secure.”

“What do you want me to do?” Rogers asks, before Stark can make a snarky comment about the security of his communication systems.

“I need you here. I need you above the board and playing Captain America. I need all eyes on you.”

“Put on a show,” he says with a weary smile. “I’m familiar with that.”

“I can just _buy_ this company,” Stark reminds them. “Rather than sending Bruce down there.”

“Absolutely not,” she snaps at him. “They can’t have the slightest hint of what we’re doing here. After you’ve finished your assignment, you have to pretend you think Barton is going to die. It’s going to be the performance of a lifetime. We’re going to sink ourselves so far down in this non-reality that it’s unhealthy. If you forget that Barton isn’t actually about to die, then _good_. I want anger. I want terror. I want breakdowns. We’re losing our teammate. So act like it.”

She’s not sure, really, where the little speech comes from. She’s not a leader. Or, more accurately, she’s never been in a position of leadership. But she supposes she’s doing well enough, because they’re nodding along, agreeing to risk their lives and livelihood for someone who was shooting at them a few days ago.

Or maybe she’s not that good of a leader – a manipulator – after all. Maybe these are just some of the world’s genuinely good people. A dying breed.

“Any questions?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Stark speaks, predictably. “How are you getting his ‘not dead’ body from the morgue to the plane I’m apparently giving you? Out of the goodness of my heart, I might add.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” she smiles. “All you need to know is that Clint once met this crazy-ass girl in New Mexico.”

 

 

 

**2 Hours after the Execution**

“Thanks for your help, again,” Clint says from behind her. They’re speaking from the jet while Natasha pilots with the computer in her lap. Clint is draped over her from behind, brushing his fingers up and down her shoulder as they watch the video chat Stark has put together.

“Don’t worry about it,” Banner says, at the same time that Stark exclaims, “It was fun!”

Rogers says, “You’re welcome,” and then adds, “Besides, I bet Natasha is the kind of person who returns favors.”

It’s ironic that he’s the one who says that, given the upcoming future. Because a few years from this moment, he’ll be the one on the hard wooden bench, watching a ghost from his past stand trial for crimes he doesn’t even remember. But for now, they all ride high on the success of the moment. There’s something about the way Clint clutches at Natasha’s shoulder, and something about the way she trails her fingers over his in response, that makes this a victory for all of them.

When the call has ended, and it’s just the two of them on the plane again, he asks her, “So, now that we’re free, who do you want to be?”

“I want to be me,” she answers in a rush of breath. “God, Clint. I just want to be me.”

"That doesn't terrify you? The thought of just being you?"

"It feels like that moment you step out into thin air. The moment before you fall."

"The moment nothing is touching you," he agrees. "It's a beautiful moment."

"What about you? Are you terrified to meet 'just Natasha'?"

“I've been looking forward to meeting her for years,” he murmurs into her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Find my [tumblr](http://polyamoryavengers.tumblr.com/) for Marvel shenanigans and oneshots.


End file.
